December 2025

We look out over the river to a block of luxury flats built on the site of some old docks. It would be nice to live right there. Yes. The conversation drifts to the pleasantness of warm lighting and whether anyone needs a smart home. I interrupt her to make a joke about the French Raj as he runs up the causeway. We stand there laughing. The fireworks go off behind him.

I imagine that some lab-grown 29-year-old from Woking with a mind honed to identify individuals who fit the profile of Real Londoner (as conceived of by 50 opinion-polled racist builders and their wives in the Midlands) picks a stubborn local who can still somehow afford to live here and passes him along to some creative studio.

hello reader,

"Anyway, you're you. I mean, look at you!" she says. "You could get with anyone, anyone in the street. Really."

not their contents

...

Thank you, Jack

the textwall is as much for me as it is for you

a lot of what i've been doing has been some imaginary screenshot or recording of his website, something that could be found within it

you have a beautiful account btw

but it is in my head and am i compelled to realise it, so it is my silmarillion, my tempelos

I'm sat out the front of a cafe in Hatton Garden. I've just eaten a brie and bacon panini, and I'm rolling a cigarette. Feeling very London. An old man comes up to me and asks for a roll-up. I oblige.

Better Lift

i got bored though because i knew all of the different arrangements of it. i probably needed to stick at it longer to get it dense enough to feel navigable in a way that was engaging to me

Actual born-Londoners aren't LARPing like this, they sold their shite family home for a million pounds and moved to Malaga years ago. They have their culture and they've taken it elsewhere.

The studio designs some piece of media to perpetuate the marketable concept of Real London, while the real London is hollowed out by hollow bankers or whatever. Not pulling on that thread. But the yuppies don't mind because they're free to iterate on Real London without any competition from real London because it's too concerned with its slow eradication. And there's nice flats to live in now or whatever. The yuppies can begin to inhabit their Real London.

i see a website

but i respect your search

i am quite confused, not quite getting the idea of it

Hours staring at the ceiling, the wall, curling up into a ball. It seems annoyed with the light, it kind of recoils. It will get lighter. I wonder where it goes in the day.

but really the thing should be autonomous

like people can read 100 books and still not have the fire within them

i dont understand magnetisation

My inability to confront the old racist failed actor is distracting me. I decide not to tell her about it.